


Natural Phenomena

by beyondthesea



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: Alternate Universe - Storm Chasers, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-19
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-07-14 09:15:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16037456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beyondthesea/pseuds/beyondthesea
Summary: There's nothing as lonely and volatile as the Great Plains in late spring, except for, perhaps, the woman standing at the bar, but that's what draws Myka to tornadoes and it's also what draws her to Helena.





	1. Bear's Cage

Myka's in a dingy little bar in Kiowa, Kansas when she first sees her.

The property is barely large enough for a person to pass between the row of bar stools and the booths pressed up against the opposite wall. There's a jukebox tucked between the end of the bar and the front windows, but Myka's not sure if it works. She hasn't seen anyone play it all night.

A woman is standing in front of it now, though. She's slight with a curtain of dark hair, wearing a lose, even baggy shirt and a pair of slacks that—Myka can't help but notice—hug every part of her legs.

She turns around and her eyes fall on Myka. She quickly averts her gaze, and when she chances a look back, the woman is circling the rim of her cup with her middle finger and smirking at her.

"Here you go."

Myka jumps as the bartender sets four drinks on the counter in front of her. The woman at the end of the bar nods at her and goes back to her own drink.

She sighs and take the drinks back to her table.

Pete and Steve are sitting closest to the wall, a map of the plains region of the Midwest spread out between them. Claudia is swiping at her phone with her thumb. Myka deposits the drinks in the center of the table and slides Pete's Mountain Dew over to him.

"So what do we think?" she asks.

"Two options," Claudia says as she reaches for one of the glasses. "There's a string of them down Route 183, about 150 miles from here, and one just over the Missouri line, near Joplin. Do you know which way Zach and Jim are going?"

Myka takes a sip of her drink.

"Joplin," she answers. "But they're up in Sedalia. They can't make it to Oklahoma by tomorrow afternoon."

"Aw, they got the Sedalia storm?" Claudia groans. She shakes her head. "God, were we the only ones who missed that?"

"Don't beat yourself up over it," Myka tells her. "We took a chance."

"Hey, we saw that double rainbow," Pete adds. "That was nice, right?"

"Except that my footage of double rainbows isn't going to pay for our gas," Steve sighs.

"Okay, okay," Myka says. "We'll wake up early tomorrow and drop by the NWS office in Wichita. It'll be clearer where the supercells are forming by then."

"Well, if we have to go all the way to Wichita in the morning, let's get out of here." Claudia drains her drink and then grimaces and shakes her head. "Oh god, that was bad." She turns to Steve. "Are you going to finish yours?"

He shakes his head and slides his glass toward her, off the edge of the map. He blots at the wet ring where the condensation on the outside of the glass soaked into the paper with a napkin, and then folds it up.

Claudia knocks back the drink.

"Okay, let's go."

Myka is halfway out the door when she hears a soft voice behind her.

"Wait."

The woman from the bar is standing in the doorway, illuminated by the neon light of the "OPEN" sign in the window.

"May I have a word?"

Her voice makes Myka want to melt. It's low, the kind of rough that comes from drinking. She has a British accent that sounds slightly watered down, like she hasn't been back in a while.

She turns over her shoulder. Claudia and Steve are already halfway across the tiny parking lot to the 2005 Dodge Ram that the four of them practically live in six weeks out of the year. Pete has stopped though. He's watching her.

"I'll be right there," Myka calls. She turns back to the woman.

The woman holds out her hand.

"Helena."

Myka isn't really used to this kind of formality. She's hasn't shaken hands with someone since she applied for her job at the Channel Three News, but Helena's smiling at her with an unfazed confidence that Myka both envies and finds incredibly attractive, so she takes the offered hand.

"Myka."

"Myka," Helena repeats slowly, like she's tasting it. "You don't hear that very often."

"You don't hear Helena very often either," Myka answers.

Helena's smile widens. "Fair point. You're not from the area."

Myka crosses her arms. "How did you know?"

"Accent," she answers. "And I saw the map on your table earlier. Where are you staying?"

"Kiowa Motel on 4th Street," Myka says.

"Ha," she barks. "It just so happens that I am too."

"You must be in the one room we didn't book," Myka replies.

"The manager did seem quite surprised to be full when I checked in," Helena answers. "Would you like to accompany me back to my room?"

Myka raises her eyebrows. Usually women in this part of the country are not so forward with her outside of the isolated gay bars in the middle of nowhere where she occasionally has Pete drop her off. She hasn't been propositioned this openly since she left Denver.

Helena is looking at her expectantly. She turns to Pete, still standing in the middle of the parking lot, and he raises his eyebrows at her.

"You go ahead," she tells him.

He smiles and winks at her before turning around, jogging the four remaining steps to the truck, and climbing into the driver's seat.

"That's your wingman?"

Myka looks back at Helena as the truck pulls away.

"My best friend."

"Ah." Helena nods. She gestures to grey Toyota sedan parked just off the curb. "Shall we?"

* * *

Helena doesn't bother to turn on the light or offer Myka a drink once they reach her room. She presses her against the door before she even has time to kick her shoes off.

She's much more confident than almost any of the women Myka has slept with since she moved to South Dakota. Her hands don't shake as she undoes Myka's belt, and when Myka crawls onto the bed, she doesn't hesitate to join her. She laughs when Myka pushes on top.

Myka's used to sleeping with women who look like deer in headlights as they assure her that, yes, they want to be doing this. She's used to sleeping with women who keep the lights off because they're embarrassed by her and by themselves, rather than because they couldn't wait to get her into bed.

They have to be quiet because the room Pete and Steve are sharing is right on the other side of the wall, and Myka bruises her shin on the bedframe, but when they're sweaty and naked, lying on their backs beside each other with their legs still tangled in the sheets, it occurs to Myka how rarely she has fun during sex. It's almost a shame they're leaving tomorrow.

"Where are you off to in the morning?" Helena asks her as they catch their breath.

Myka sighs. "I don't know. Wichita, and then we'll figure it out from there. What about you? Are you staying?"

Helena chuckles. Myka can see her shake her head through the darkness. "In this charming town? If I didn't know better, I'd say the people here think I'm some sort of… of alien or something."

"The accent?" you ask.

"The accent," Helena agrees. "The clothes. I don't think this town can wait to be rid of me. None of them ever can."

Myka sits up and begins to root around for the underwear she knows are still in the bed somewhere.

"Where you born in England?"

"London," Helena answers. "We lived there until I was fifteen. There's not a greater city on earth. Leaving was the second hardest thing I've ever had to do."

"But you haven't gone back," you say.

"I haven't." Helena sighs. It's a deep sigh, and Myka can tell there's a story behind it. "When we first I arrived here, I was so certain I would return to Europe for university, but when the time came, I had a rather compelling reason not to. And then, by the time I didn't, I found that leaving no longer felt like an option."

"Oh," Myka pulls her shirt over her head. "Do you think you ever will?"

"I honestly couldn't say," Helena answers. "Do you think you'll ever go back to wherever you're from?"

"I already did."

Myka hitches her pants over her hips and gathers her phone and wallet. She has one hand on the doorknob, but she looks back at Helena, still sitting up in bed, the sheets pillowed around her waist.

"What was the hardest?"

"What?"

"You said leaving London was the second hardest thing you ever did," Myka says. "What was the hardest?"

Helena smiles bitterly and shakes her head.

"I'm afraid that's hardly a story for after sex."

"You smell like sex," Claudia groans as Myka locks the door of the room they're sharing behind her. Her face is still buried in the pillow.

"You can't smell me," Myka replies with a roll of her eyes.

She climbs into the bed nearest the door without undressing again and pulls the floral-print comforter over her head.

* * *

When they pull out of the motel parking lot at 7:00 AM the next morning, Helena's grey Toyota—a Carolla, now that Myka's seen it up close—is gone.

They catch an EF2 just outside Sentinel, Oklahoma. They don't get any good measurements because the remote control helicopter that their probe is bolted to gets tossed into a field a quarter mile away before it even gets into the tornado, but Steve takes some footage that he sells to a local news station for enough money to pay for a tank of gas.

It's been three weeks when Myka sees Helena again. It's late May, down to the last weeks of an unsuccessful season. They're staying at an America's Best Value Inn in Wichita Falls, Texas after striking out on a supercell near Byers. It's the first time this season they've spent the night in a city with over 100,000 people in it.

"You guys won't believe this," Pete tells them while they're sitting in a Denny's at 9:45 at night waiting for their scrambled eggs. "There's a bar doing a karaoke night tonight."

"I'm down," Claudia answers immediately. "It's been a while since we've actually had something to do."

It might be a jab at Myka's navigational skills, because it's been a week and a half since they've seen anything other than moderately heavy rain and a whole lot of wheat, but she's too tired to argue.

Steve agrees with a wordless nod.

Myka sighs. "You guys, go. I'm exhausted, and I haven't showered since we got rained on earlier."

"Come on, Mykes," Pete says. "Neither have any of us. Come have some fun."

"None of you have hair as curly as mine," Myka points out. "No, I just want to watch some TV in the room and go to bed early. But I'm serious. Go. Have fun."

Pete rolls his eyes, but forty-five minutes later, he drops her off on the curb in front of the motel with a stern, "Don't get into too much trouble."

She's fresh out of the shower, standing at the ice machine when she hears that voice again.

"Myka?"

When she looks up, the woman with the sleek dark hair that Myka can still feel between her fingers is standing before her, eyes wide and mouth slightly agape in surprise. She's wearing another airy button-up shirt and a pair of white pants that hug her legs no less than the ones she was wearing in Kiowa. She almost looks like a ghost, standing there on the sidewalk under the buzzing outdoor lights of the America's Best Value Inn. There's something about her that feels timeless, but Myka can't quite put her finger on what.

"Helena." She says, just as surprised as Helena looks. "You remembered my name."

"It's not every day I hear a name like that," Helena answers. "You remembered mine as well."

"Got me there." Myka narrows her eyes. "Are you following me?"

"I could ask you the same question."

Myka shrugs. "I'm just getting ice."

"And I was getting something out of my car." Helena jostles the battered leather briefcase in her right hand. "Would you like to come back to my room?"

"I shouldn't," Myka answers. "I already bailed on a night out because I wanted to go to bed early."

That, and she hasn't slept with anyone more than once since she broke up with her last and only girlfriend a year and a half ago.

"Ah, right, your friends." Helena nods. "They're well?"

"They're venting their frustration somewhere else," Myka says. "It's been a long couple of weeks."

"Yes, I have found that traveling for long periods of time with companions can breed resentment," Helena replies. "That's one of the reasons I prefer to travel alone. Well, I shall let you get back to your ice." She starts down the sidewalk in the opposite direction of Myka's room, but then she stops and looks back a Myka, her hair tumbling over her right shoulder. "I'm staying in Room 12. I'll be in for the rest of the night."

Myka goes back to her room and flips on the TV. The motel doesn't have cable, so her only choices are a talk show with some celebrity she doesn't recognize, a rerun of _Law & Order_, a children's show about dinosaurs, a rerun of a different episode of _Law & Order_, and _Dateline_. She flips between _Dateline_ and _Law & Order_ until the commercial break, and then she switches the TV off and flops backwards onto her back.

Helena smiles when she opens the door. Myka can hear the talk show playing inside the room.

"I hoped you might change your mind."

"There was nothing on TV," Myka offers in way of an explanation.

Helena steps back to let her in. "Well, I'm glad to hear that I'm at least a better draw than the nightly news."

" _Law & Order_, actually." Myka steps into the room.

Helena closes the door behind her. "Even better."

"It was an episode from the nineties." Her father used to watch Law & Order every Wednesday night when she was growing up. If she'd been a little more honest with herself at the age of thirteen, Claire Kincaid might have contributed to her sexual awakening.

"Is this you trying to flirt?" Helena asks, but Myka can tell without looking back at her that she's smiling.

Her mouth is on Myka's neck before she has time to answer.

* * *

When she first wakes up, she thinks she's in her room and that the shuffling noises coming from the table against the opposite wall are Claudia.

The sunlight peaking between the blinds onto the comforter is warm and bright, and definitely not what she expects at 6:30 in the morning, which is the time the alarm on her phone was supposed to wake her up.

"What time is it?" she murmurs.

"Nearly eight."

The voice that answers does not belong to Claudia.

She bolts upright.

"Helena?" she asks. "Oh my god, I fell asleep! I can't believe I fell asleep. I'm so sorry."

She crawls across the bed and reaches for her jeans, lying in a pile on the floor near the chair where Helena is sitting.

"No need to apologize," Helena answers. "You did say you planned to turn in early. You seemed to need the rest."

"God, I hope Claudia's not looking for me," she mutters, groping around under the bed for her shirt."

"She probably assumes you're with another woman," Helena answers with a shrug. "They didn't seem terribly surprised when you decided to accompany me back to my room last time." She looks up at you. "How often do you accompany strange women to their motel rooms."

She's looking at Myka with a sly smile and a playful glint in her eye.

"Just one since last time," Myka answers. "In Parsons, Kansas."

"You were in Parsons?" Helena asks. "I was there too. Complete disappointment. I should have gone up to Fort Scott." She scowls and shakes her head.

"Wait a second." Myka looks slowly up at her. "Where you chasing?"

She pulls her shirt over her head and stands up to look at the papers Helena is shuffling around over her shoulder.

"You've got meteorological data."

"Is that why you're here?" Helena asks.

"Yeah," Myka answers. "We're trying to take measurements from inside a tornado to develop a better advance warning system. I'm a meteorologist."

"So that's what your team does." Helena sets down her papers. "I'd assumed you were merely on a road trip tour of the Midwest. Although it did seem strange that you wouldn't have gotten farther by now."

"And that anyone would intentionally take a road trip around Kansas and Oklahoma," Myka replies. "So what are you doing out here? You're not some thrill seeker, are you?"

Helena chuckles. "No, I'm afraid not. I'm trying to…" she pauses thoughtfully, "understand. A tornado is like… a hand of god, if you will. It comes out of the sky to decimate lives in one house and leaves the next-door neighbors untouched. In many ways, it feels more like a sentient creature than a natural phenomenon. I need to know why." She shrugs. "My more practical aspiration is similar to yours. The advanced warning system."

"Where's your team?" Myka asks. "Who do you work with?"

Helena turns back to her papers. "As I told you last night, I travel alone."

"You chase alone," Myka repeats.

"I'm a meteorologist," Helena answers. "I know how to read and interpret my data. I know how to drive. I don't need a team."

"Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?" Myka asks.

"I'm acutely aware of the dangers a tornado poses," Helena answers sharply. "But I take calculated risks, and none of the teams I've worked with have been willing to keep up."

"Chase with us."

It's out of Myka's mouth before she's even thought about it.

Helena shakes her head again. "I don't think that would be a good idea."

"Come on, we can be a convoy," Myka pushes. "Lots of teams do it. And having a second vehicle would make the truck less crowded. Steve barely has room for his camera equipment."

"Myka…"

"Just try it once," she insists. "If you don't like it, I'll never ask you again."

Helena smirks. "Is that what you say to all the girls?"

Myka smiles at her. "I'll meet you in the parking lot in half an hour."

She turns toward the door, but then she stops. "Oh, and can you bring my bra if you find it? You know how expensive they are, and I only packed two."

Helena raises an eyebrow at her. "Aren't you also missing your underwear?"

"Those weren't expensive."

Myka winks at her as she steps out of the room and closes the door behind her.

* * *

"So let me get this straight." Claudia is leaning against the back of the pickup truck, her arms crossed. "Not only did you invite some stranger to chase with us, but you want one of us to get in the car with her."

"Not one of you," Myka answers. "Steve. You've been telling us you don't have room in the backseat to maneuver your camera. I know it's tight back there."

"We have no idea what her chase style's like," Claudia argues. "What if she's some… what if she doesn't know what she's doing?"

"She's a meteorologist," Myka answers. "She knows how tornados work. And she's not really a stranger. I've spent time with her."

Claudia raises her eyebrows. "And how much of that time did you spend talking about storms?"

Myka shoves her hands in her pocket and glances down at the pavement. "Some."

Pete's hand falls on her shoulder. "Mykes, look, you know I usually trust your judgment—I'd have to, to come out here with you—but I'm not sure about this. We don't know her."

"Okay, then I'll tell you guys the same thing I told her," Myka says. "Just try it once. If it doesn't work out, that's it. We'll move on, and I'll never bring it up again."

"Good morning!" a familiar accented voice calls from behind her.

Helena is approaching the truck. The briefcase she was carring last night dangles over her shoulder.

"I'm told we're chasing together today."

Steve sighs. "Okay, okay, I'll do it. But you're never holding gay-lesbian solidarity over my head again."

"What was that?" Helena asks.

"Steve's going to ride with you," Myka answers quickly. "He's our videographer. I hope you don't mind your passenger-side window being down most of the chase."

"I do love the feeling of eighty mile per hour winds in my hair," she replies easily.

"Great." Myka pulls her notes out of her back pocket. "There's a string of supercells over Highway 56. I'm focusing on one approaching Larned, Kansas that looks particularly promising." She looks up at Helena. "Do you agree?"

"I do," Helena answers.

"Okay, this could be the one that makes the whole season worth it," she continues. "It's about six hours, so if we don't stop, we can be there by…" she checks her watch, "3:30. That should give us time to gas up and figure out our game plan."

Steve turns to Pete. "You still got those walkie talkies in the glove compartment?"

"Yep." He reaches opens the driver's side door and stretches across the seats. He fishes around for a minute, and then he straightens up and tosses Helena a yellow plastic walkie talkie.

"We'll call you when we get there and figure out where to meet," he says. "If it's not obvious, I guess."

* * *

It turns out to be obvious.

Myka's first thought when they pull into the parking lot of the Kwik Shop where storm chasers are parked nearly bumper to bumper is that they might be doubling the population of this town.

They've parked the Ram between a Weather Channel van and a satellite truck and run into the convenience store for a couple of pops and a bag of Funyuns by the time Helena pulls in. Myka's sitting in the passenger seat, where her laptop is mounted to the right of the radio. The door is open and Claudia is standing just outside holding a map and looking at the screen over her shoulder.

"It looks like it's over 110th, just north of the airport," she's saying. "So we should position on, what, South and 90th?"

"That way we can hop on 56 if things go bad." Myka nods. "40th goes over the river. Seems like a good spot."

"Do we have a plan?"

Myka looks up at the sound of Helena's voice.

"Yeah, we're going to wait here." she points to a spot halfway between 90th and Both Avenue, "We can position ourselves once it touches down, and then we'll drop the probes and get clear."

"We were trying to fly them directly into the storm," Claudia explains, "but they kept getting tossed before they could transmit any data, so Leena and I—Leena's our physicist—we went back to the drawing board."

She walks around to the bed of the truck and pulls a tarp aside. The apparatus is shaped like a cone with a base that extends out from under it in a square shape.

"It's called Elphaba," Claudia says. "Myka wanted to call it Dorothy, but we needed something a little more this century, right? Plus, look at what it's shaped like. How could you not? So check it out." She points down at the base. "We nail it into the ground with stakes. The whole body is full of probes, and when we release them remotely, it lets them out one at a time so they're dispersed all through the tornado." She turns to Myka. "It's going to be awesome."

"How long did it take you to build this?" Helena asks.

Claudia shrugs. "About a week. The hardest thing was finding the parts we needed to—"

"Hey! Myka!"

Two men approaching from across the parking lot. The one of the left is wearing a black t-shirt with a gold image of a buffalo on it, and the other, a plain blue polo and a backwards baseball cap.

"Claudia, Helena," Myka says, sucking in a deep breath as they come to a stop in front of her. "Zach and Jim."

"Oh, the guys you used to chase with," Claudia holds out her hand. "Claudia Donovan. Engineer extraordinaire."

"Hey, congrats on getting back in," Zach says as he shakes Claudia's hand. "You still working with Leena?"

Myka nods and chews on her bottom lip. "It's our third season back together."

"Wow, has it really been that long?" Zach crosses his arms. "I can't believe we haven't run into each other before now."

"This year it's because all my calls have been bad," Myka answers, shaking her head. "I heard you guys were in Sedalia."

"Yeah, it was pretty wild," Jim answers. "EF4."

"Wow, I haven't seen an EF4 since—" Myka cuts herself off, and Zach grimaces. "Since I was chasing with you guys."

"You heard that was downgraded to an EF3, right?" Zach asks, his voice low.

"You don't believe it was an EF3, do you?" Myka asks as Jim mutters, "Bullshit scale."

Zach sighs. "I don't know how anyone who was there could. Look, Myka—"

"Stop." She holds up a hand. "I don't want to hear it."

"I just wanted to say—"

"No," she says firmly. "I can't deal with that right now. Find me afterwards. I can't think about it going into a chase."

Zach nods. "Fair enough." He claps her on the shoulder and gives her a shake. He's still wearing that awful underwater watch that Sam got him for his twenty-fourth birthday. It must be a decade old by now. "Glad to have you back."

Jim's favors his right side as they pick their way back across the parking lot. She wonders if he ever actually did the physical therapy for his knee. He was always stubborn like that. She feels bad about leaving the way she did, never checking in on them, never ascertaining that they were really okay.

Helena turns to her, eye wide, as she watches them walk away. "Were you in El Reno?"

"What did she just say?" Claudia hisses.

Myka only shrugs. "Wasn't everyone in El Reno?" She turns to Helena. "Stay within range of the walkies once we get into it, okay? Cell service might be down."

"Aye aye, captain." Helena presses her fingers to her forehead in a mock salute.

* * *

By 5:30, the sky is the telltale black and green of an oncoming storm and they can see a heavy charcoal-colored wall cloud rotating low in the sky to the south of them as Pete pulls over on South Road.

Claudia slaps Myka on the arm. "I think this is going to be the one."

Helena pulls over behind them, and Steve climbs out of the passenger seat. He pulls his camera out of the backseat and balances it on his shoulder. Pete helps Claudia and Myka lift Elphaba out of the bed of the truck and into the field.

"We should wait to nail it down," Myka says as Claudia reaches for the stakes in the back seat. "We might have to adjust."

They probably should have left it in the bed of the truck until they were sure, but Myka is just so excited to try it out and she's feeling optimistic about today.

"Look," Claudia nods southwest, toward the wall cloud. "It's spinning up."

Myka snaps her head to the south. A wide, dark funnel is folding out from under the low-hanging clouds not a mile away, hovering just off the ground.

"Perfect," she murmurs. "Look at that cone." She glances at Claudia. "Get the stakes ready. We're going to have to do this fast."

"Uh, guys?" Pete says. "I don't think so."

Myka looks back at the tornado and watches it for a moment, but instead of getting larger against the dark teal sky like she expects it to, it's moving to the left. If anything, it's shrinking in size.

"It's headed southeast," Helena murmurs as she watches the horizon.

"Okay, okay, it was a bad call," Myka says. "Help me get it back in the truck."

Claudia, Pete, and Helena each lift a corner of the apparatus and heave it back into the bed of the truck while Steve pulls his tripod out of the backseat of the truck and stows it in the back of Helena's Corolla.

"Everyone, back in the truck!" Myka calls. "Helena, have your walkie talkie ready. We can still get in front of it."

She jumps into the passenger seat slams her door shut as Steve is ducking into Helena's car, his camera cradled against his chest.

"East," she mutters to Pete as he speeds down South Road.

"Get on 156!" Claudia calls as they reach the interstate.

"No, it runs southwest!" Myka answers. "By the time we're far enough south, we'll be behind it. Turn right, here!"

The tornado is still headed to their left, gaining size. It looks more like a stovepipe now, and it's suddenly larger on the horizon than was when it touched down. When Myka blinks, she can see a bigger tornado, a closer one, and she can hear screams of, _Left! Left!_ and, _No! if you turn left we die!_

"R Road?" Pete calls as they approach another intersection.

"No," Myka answers. She looks down at the map in her lap. "We're going to have to cross the river. Okay, left on Q!"

The back wheels of the truck slide as Pete wrenches the wheel left.

"Helena, you still behind us?" Myka asks into the walkie talkie.

"Yes," a robotic version of Helena's voice answers. "What's the plan?"

"We need to go south on 60th," Myka answers. "We're coming to the river, and the nearest bridge is on O."

"Hey, Mykes?" Pete says.

"Do you copy?" Myka asks into the walkie talkie.

"Myka!" Pete exclaims as Helena answers, "Copy."

When she looks up, the tornado is no longer moving east as quickly as it was before. In fact, they seem to be catching up to it, but it spans nearly twice the length of the horizon as it did. It's close enough that Myka can see the debris field. Chunks of wood, sheet metal, large pieces of pipe all tossing around violently at the base of the funnel.

"Jesus Christ," Claudia gasps from the back seat. "It's growing. I think it's going to be a wedge."

"It changed directions," Myka whispers. She is frozen, staring at the violent grey cloud for a second— _God, it's right on our tail! I think we're inside it!_ —before her mind whirs back to life.

"Left on O!" she yells. She ducks back toward the walkie talkie. "Helena, we're pulling the plug. We've got to get out of here."

"So we're deploying your sensors?" she asks.

"No, we don't have time," Myka answers. "We did too good a job catching up to it. If we stop now, we won't have time to get clear. O's going to dead-end here in a second. Turn left."

There is a second's pause, and then Helena answers, "No."

"What?" Myka asks.

"No," she repeats. "You haven't successfully deployed all season. This is our only chance."

"It's fine!" Myka insists. "We can wait another year."

"And how many will die in the meantime?" Helena asks. Under other circumstances, Myka would admire the conviction in her voice, but in this situation, it's terrifying.

In the rearview mirror, she sees the Corolla turn south on 60th Avenue.

"What is she doing?" Pete demands over the howling winds that are just starting to reach them.

"Steve's in there!" Claudia yells as a steel trailer cartwheels through the field about two hundred yards away.

"I know!" Myka answers. "Just let me… get my thoughts—"

"Mykes, we don't have time for that."

Pete veers into a wheat field, does a U-turn so sharp it throws Myka and Claudia against the passenger side doors, and speeds in the other direction.

"That was illegal!" Myka cries as she rights herself and carefully rotates her shoulder.

"I'll pay for the damage," Pete grunts, his focus intently on the road.

Pete turns back onto 60th, and then onto O Road. The hail pelting the roof of the truck sounds like baseballs hitting an aluminum fence. A mailbox blows out of the ground and across the road in front of them.

"Are we inside the tornadic wind field?" Claudia asks breathlessly. I think we're inside it!

"Helena?" Myka yells into the walkie talkie. "Can you hear me? You need to drive as fast as you can. It's is bearing down on you. We're already in it."

There's no response.

"Can you see her taillights?" Myka asks Pete, squinting ahead. The windshield is too flooded to make out anything on the other side of it. She feels dizzy.

"Oh my god!" Claudia exclaims from the back seat. "Did you see that? That barn in that field over there just blew apart."

_Watch it! Watch that sheet metal! Did that barn just blow away?_

"We can still get ahead of it," Pete says, but he sounds like he's underwater. His knuckles are white around the wheel. He's straining to keep the truck on the road. "We've got miles of open road ahead of us. We can drive back out of it and get clear."

"What about Steve?" Claudia demands.

"I don't know where he is," Pete answers. "There's not much we can do for him now."

"Helena!" Myka calls into the walkie talkie again. "God damnit! Steve!"

"Forget it, Myka," Pete says. "She's not answering."

Myka hurls the walkie talkie up against the windshield. The cover of the battery compartment breaks off with a clatter. The walkie talkie slides along the dashboard as she drops her head in her hands. She can't breathe. She feels like she's drowning.

"Deep breaths," Pete calls to her. His hand is on her shoulder for a second before he removes it to return to the wheel. The engine growls as he accelerates.

Myka can feel the wheels lift off the ground, front first and then the back. The sounds of three grown men screaming almost disappear under the deafening roar of the storm. She hears thick glass break, and then she feels a sharp pain in her left arm near her shoulder. Something cuts across her face. For a second, there's a scratching, rustling sound coming from the seat beside her, like an animal being dragged out of a cage against its will, and then it stop and one of the voices disappears into the wind.

She's going to die here. She can feel it.

When she manages to make it back to the surface, all four of the truck's tires are still planted firmly on the ground. The windows are all intact. The pain in her arm is gone, as is the wet trickle of blood down her cheek. She takes a long, shaky breath.

"See? The rain's lightening up," Pete is saying. "I think we're out of it. I'm going to turn south up here. We can get out of the way before it catches us again."

He signals to turn onto 40th Avenue, but Myka stops him with a hand on his arm.

"What's that?"

There's something battered and silver lying twenty yards into a field ahead of them.

"Oh, god," Claudia gasps. "Do you think that's—"

"I don't know," Myka answers, even though she does.

Pete pulls off the road and Myka stumbles out of the car and staggers toward the ruined Corolla. There's still hail, but it's smaller now. She ducks her face and shields her head with her arms, and she tries not to trip over the debris scattered through the field but she does twice.

The car is upside down. When she gets close enough to see through the rain, Steve is kneeling on the ground helping Helena climb out through the broken driver's side window. They're still holding onto each other's arms as they rise slowly and shakily to their feet.

"Thank god!"

Claudia flies past her and throws herself into Steve's arms. He stumbles backwards until his shoulder collides with one of the upturned wheels.

Myka turn towards Helena, scans her for damage. She is covered in mud and there's a cut above her right eye. She's cradling her right arm in her left.

"What were you thinking!" she explodes. "You could have gotten Steve killed! You could have been killed!"

"I misjudged," Helena answers without looking at her. "I thought we could still get ahead of it if we were fast enough."

"Helena, you can't make calls like that!" Myka yells. "Not when you do what we do! That's how people die!"

"I know how people die in tornados!" Helena roars. "I've seen it happen! I thought—" she breaks off and takes a breath. When she speaks again, her voice is level. "I thought that, perhaps, if we could get some viable data, something that could save lives, it would be worth it."

"We'd have to make it out alive first," Myka points out. "And if we died and our knowledge died with us, we wouldn't be able to save anyone."

Helena looks down at the grass by her feet. "I know," she answers.

* * *

Helena's car is totaled, so they drive her to the Greyhound stop in Hays. She can take the bus to Wichita and from there she can board a plane or a train or a bus back to… wherever she lives. Myka never asked.

"I am sorry," she says before she climbs out of the truck. She's squeezed into the back with Claudia and Steve. "I'm glad everyone's okay."

Pete nods silently from the driver's seat. Myka can feel the barely contained rage radiating off of Claudia.

"Myka…" she feels a hand on her shoulder. "I understand if you don't want to talk to me again, but I want you to know that I genuinely enjoyed the time we spent together."

And then her hand is gone. Myka watches her pull the belongings they were able to salvage out of the bed of the truck and back away, toward the Greyhound sign. She offers a wave, but Myka doesn't wave back.


	2. Damage Path

Steve's camera is gone, blown out the window of the car, so they don't have a way to finance the last week of the trip. They make the ten-hour drive back to Rapid City in near-silence. Pete goes back the firehouse, Claudia to her engineering firm, and Steve and Myka to the Channel Three News station.

She doesn't talk to any of them about what happened, but she's laboring under the impression that she will have to find a new team for next year. Zach and Jim would probably take her back, but she can't chase with them now for the same reason she couldn't in 2014. The empty seat beside her would still be there.

But then, on New Year's Eve, Myka is sitting on Pete's couch watching the ball drop in Times Square, and he says, "You haven't brought up next season."

Myka takes a sip of her beer. "What?" she asks.

Pete has his arm around the back of the couch behind her, but he pulls back to look at her. "We chasing this year?"

Myka raises her eyebrows. "You want to?"

"Yeah, of course." Pete jabs at her arm. "We do every year, right?"

"Yeah, I just…" Myka shrugs. "I just wasn't sure… after everything that happened last year, I didn't think anyone would want to."  
"What, with Helena?" Pete asks. "Look, you weren't the one who tried to drive into a tornado. We just won't pick up any stragglers this year, right? It'll be fine."

Myka sighs and shakes her head. "We'll be lucky if I can find another videographer as good as Steve. Especially one that can just take off with us for six weeks."

"What? He's not coming?" Pete furrows his brow. "Last week, he was down."

"He was?" Myka asks.

"Yeah, him and Claudia," Pete answers. "We're all ready to go. We just weren't sure if you were. You seemed pretty rattled when we got back, and then we never talked about it."

"It just…" Myka shakes her head, "it was just such a serious lapse in judgment. And it wasn't my first one. Never mind."

"Hey, Myka." Pete leans toward her, and she knows he's about to get serious because he's not using the nickname he's called her since fourth grade. "Did you ever, you know, talk to anyone about what happened?"

"Talk to anyone?" Myka asks. "Like a…"

Pete shrugs. "It's just, a lot of the guys I served with, they needed to when they got back. To help them deal with everything."

Myka rolls her eyes. "I was in a storm, Pete. It wasn't combat."

"Doesn't matter," Pete answers. "It was trauma. It can happen to anyone. Just think about it, okay?"

* * *

The last week of April, they meet outside the warehouse where Claudia and Leena have spent the past month and a half modifying Elphaba. It's sleeker than the model Claudia cobbled together in the bed of the truck last year with Leena providing input via Facetime. They've painted it black with a green stripe along its base.

"To fit with the theme," Claudia says when Myka raises and eyebrow at her.

They park their cars inside the warehouse and load Elphaba into the bed of the truck.

"Be safe," Leena says as she hugs Myka goodbye. She can tell by the tone of her voice that Claudia has told her what happened last year. "Trust your instincts. They're good ones."

"You know that's not always true," Myka answers darkly.

"You could have talked to me, you know," Leena says.

Myka shakes her head. "I just want to forget about it."

Leena sighs. "I'm just glad to see you getting back out there. I was worried we were done when I heard."

"I could never leave you hanging like that," Myka replies. "You're set up at the university?"

"I've got my radar back out and everything," Leena answers. "All your data should come right to my computer."

Myka rests her hands on Leena's shoulders. "What would I do without you?"

"Have a good trip, okay?" Leena says. "Try not to focus on last year too much."

She gives Claudia a hug and hands her two unwieldy garbage bags. "Don't forget."

Claudia laughs. "I can just see it." She mimes holding a phone to her ear. "Yeah, Leena? Um, don't be mad but we left all the capsule refills back at the warehouse so I think we're done for the season."

Myka takes one of the bags from her and they heave them into the bed behind Elphaba.

Claudia slaps her shoulder. "Let's go. We're losing daylight."

* * *

For the first three weeks of the trip, Myka doesn't see Helena. She doesn't hear about Helena. She's not even sure Helena's chasing this year.

They're in a Waffle House in Fort Smith, Arkansas when their paths finally cross. It's early and Myka has a plate of pancakes and data from the National Weather Service office in Booneville spread out on the table in front of her.

She looks up to see if there's a syrup pitcher on the table next to them, and Helena is at the counter ordering a tea.

She drops her fork, a piece of pancake still hanging off it, and it clatters against her plate.

Helena looks toward the source of the noise. Her eyes widen when they land on Myka. She nods hesitantly, and the corner of her mouth twitches toward a smile.

Myka nods back, but she doesn't return the smile. She can see Helena swallow before turning back toward the elderly woman preparing her tea.

Pete sees her too. Myka can feel him stiffen beside her. He doesn't say anything, for which Myka is grateful. She tries to turn her attention back to the argument Claudia and Steve are having about whether they should head for a large supercell outside Lubbock, Texas that won't give them enough time to reach a promising-looking string of storms beginning to form near the Missouri-Iowa boarder.

Helena leaves as they're paying their check, and Myka breathes a sigh of relief. It's not that she doesn't want to talk to her. It's that she doesn't not want to talk to her.. It's best if they stay on their separate paths. A clean break.

Helena catches her on the sidewalk just outside the door.

"Myka, may I have a word?"

Pete looks at her with his eyebrows raised. Claudia and Steve turn around towards them, and Claudia's face folds into a deep scowl. Myka almost expects her to answer for her.

"It's okay," Myka tells them.

Pete pauses like he might disagree, but then he nods, still eyeing Helena, and turns toward Steve and Claudia. "Come on. Let's get the GPS set up. It's a long way to St. Joseph."

"St. Joseph, Missouri?" Helena asks turning away from Pete, towards Myka. "You're risking it too."

"What do you want?" Myka crosses her arms.

"Just to talk," Helena answers, and she has the audacity to sound completely innocent.

"Yeah, well, like Pete said, we have a pretty long way to go," Myka answers. "Make it fast."

"I'm glad to see you again," Helena says.

Myka sighs and looks away, into the front window of the Waffle House.

"I know you may not be happy to see me," Helena continues. "And I am truly sorry about what transpired last year. I heard you had to cut your trip short because of it. But I thought I'd give you this."

She hands Myka a folded paper napkin. Myka eyes it for a moment before taking it.

"I can't imagine you're feeling terribly generous towards me, but, well, it would make me feel better to know you had a way to reach me if you ever wanted… in case you ever needed to."

She reaches out and hesitantly rests a hand on Myka's arm and squeezes, and then she walks off across the parking lot toward a dark red, late-nineties era Nissan that must have replaced the Corolla she totaled last year.

"Didn't think we'd see her again so soon," Pete says as Myka climbs into the passenger seat of the truck. "What was that about?"

Myka unfolds the napkin crumpled in her fist. There's a number scrawled across it in smudged blue pen. The impression is deep and clear, but there are no holes in the napkin, like Helena writes on them a lot and knows the secret to it.

"She gave me her phone number."

Pete shakes his head. "She's got balls. I'll give her that."

* * *

Myka doesn't intend to call Helena. She intends to drop the napkin in the trashcan in her motel room in St. Joseph, Missouri and not think about it again. She intends to spend the rest of May seething that Helena could be presumptuous enough to give Myka her phone number after nearly killing her teammate.

Myka intends to do a lot of things she doesn't.

She digs the napkin out of the trash while Claudia is in the shower and types the number into her phone.

_Where are you staying_

The reply comes in before she's even set her phone back down on the bed beside her.

_Motel 6_

The Motel 6 is a seven-minute walk from the Days Inn where Myka's team is camped out, on the other side of I-29 and past a Red Lobster and a Denny's. The sun is sinking below the horizon as Myka crosses the overpass and the next text comes in.

_I'm in room 4_

"I didn't think I'd hear from you so soon," Helena says as she opens the door. She still wears the same lose shirts and tight pants she wore last year, and Myka hates that she looks so similar when Myka feels so different.

"I didn't want to come," Myka admits, but she's already pulling Helena towards her with a hand on the back of her neck.

"Should we talk?" Helena asks, breathless between long, enthusiastic kisses.

"I'm not here to talk," Myka answers.

"Right then."

The sex is completely different than it was last spring. Last spring they laughed. They cracked jokes. They had the most fun Myka has ever had during sex. It felt like they were entering some other universe where was no pressure and no sense of time. Now it's rushed and desperate and _silent_. It feels halfway between the sex people have with their significant other after a fight but before making up and the sex people have with their exes that they both pretend never happened the next morning.

Last year they left the lights off because they were so eager to get to each other. This year, Myka makes sure they're off because not having to see Helena means she won't have to think so hard about what she's doing.

When they're finished, Myka doesn't linger. Helena is still lying on her back panting when she gets up to start looking for her clothes.

"You don't have to leave so soon," she says, lifting her head off the pillow. The way the moonlight drenches her face makes her look like a ghost.

"Yes, I do," Myka answers. "Claudia will wonder where I was."

Helena props herself up on her elbow. "You must have been gone for at least an hour and a half by now" she points out. "I dare say she's already wondering."

Myka ignores her. "Text me what town you're in tomorrow night," she says as she opens the door of the motel room. She forces herself not to look back and focuses instead, as she crosses back over I-29, on how she feels like shit.

* * *

It goes on like that for two weeks. Every night they're in the same town and staying within walking distance of each other, Myka goes to Helena's motel room. They don't talk and Myka never stays once they're finished.

At first it's hurried and frantic because is Myka slows down, even for a second, she might realize what she's doing and come to her senses, but as the nights continue, Helena begins to draw it out. She falls back into the rhythm they had last May when time felt like no object to them. Myka can't decide whether she likes or dislikes the change. The sex is better now, but it makes her feel worse. She shouldn't enjoy doing something like this with someone like Helena.

She's not sure how they can ever go anywhere together after what happened, and she hates that she's even thought about it.

The seventh time Myka sees Helena, Claudia is waiting for her when she gets back to their room.

She's sitting cross-legged on the comforter playing solitaire with a pack of actual playing cards. She doesn't look up when she asks, "Where have you been?"

"Out," Myka answers.

Claudia rolls her eyes. "In this town? There's like eight hundred people here. Where did you go? The tractor supply shop?"

"I went for a walk," Myka answers.

"It's been two hours." Claudia looks up at her as she crosses her arms. "I was starting to worry some sort of _Children of the Corn_ shit was going down. I wouldn't do well in a horror movie. I haven't worked out since tenth grade gym."

"Look, I'm sorry I worried you," Myka says. "But I'm fine. You see that."

Claudia shakes her head and scoots to the edge of the bed, scattering the playing cards with her knee. They have an image of a grey-skinned, round-eyed alien on the back. Myka recognizes them from two years ago, when they ended the season with a trip down the Extraterrestrial Highway.

"You keep mysteriously disappearing, not a word to me or anyone else. This is the third time this week. You don't have to lie to me." Suddenly, she gasps and the corners of her lips curve up into a smirk. "Were you getting laid? Was it by that waitress from Waffle House? You were with someone, right? Tinder date?"

"I don't have Tinder," Myka answers.

"Then, I swear to god, I don't know how you find them all the way out here." Claudia shakes her head. "The nearest gay bar is what, an hour away?"

Myka nods. "In Lawton, probably. Forty minutes."

"So you weren't there because the truck didn't move, and I know you don't have the money to Uber that far. Do they even have Uber all the way out here?"

"I don't have Uber either," Myka answers.

"You don't have… okay, fine," Claudia says as she starts to gather her playing cards. "Don't tell me. It's not like we're friends and I worry about you when you disappear into the plains after dark or anything."

Myka collapses on the end of her bed across from where Claudia is sitting with a sigh. She presses her face into her hands.

"Okay," she says. "Okay. I was with someone."

"I knew it! I knew it!" Claudia squeals. "Leena didn't think so, but I told her. Who is it? Has it been the same person this whole time? So she has to be another chaser, right?"

Myka nods. She clenches her jaw, and then she lets go.

"You remember Helena?"

She hears the mattress squeak as Claudia stands up.

"Helena who drove straight at an approaching tornado and almost got Steve killed last May?" she asks. "Yeah, I remember her."

Myka nods.

There's a long, tense pause.

"Does Steve know?"

Myka shakes her head. "No one does."

"Are you… are you dating her?" Claudia asks.

"No," Myka answers quickly. "It's just sex. We've barely said ten words to each other."

"Well, I guess that explains the sneaking," she says. It reminds Myka of the way her mother used to talk to her when she was in high school, sneaking out to spend her evenings reading under the bleachers at the football field just to avoid being at home. "Why?"

"I don't know," Myka says. "When she first approached me, I was so sure I never wanted to see her again. I threw her number away and then I just… I don't know. I couldn't pass up the opportunity. And every time I do it, I tell myself it's going to be the last time, but I always know that it won't be."

Claudia sighs and sits down next to her.

"You really like her."

Myka nods.

Claudia inhales throw clenched teeth. "That sucks."

Myka nods again.

"You should tell Pete and Steve," she says. "They should know. Especially Steve."

"You think they'll be pissed?" Myka asks.

Claudia takes a moment to think. "I think Steve is too understanding, especially towards you," she answers. "And I'm not sure Pete could stay mad at you if he tried. It'll be fine."

Myka lays back on the bed, her hands still covering her eyes. "Why am I doing this?"

"Hey, that's your shit to work through." She feels Claudia's weight lift off the mattress, and a second later, she hears a squeak as Claudia climbs back into the other bed. "I'm going to sleep. Do you need the lights on?"

* * *

Claudia is right. Steve and Pete don't seem angry.

"It's reassuring to know that my near-death experience wasn't for nothing," Steve says, a smile on his face, after Myka tells them over breakfast the next morning.

They're stuffed into a booth in the back corner of a Burger King in Duncan, Oklahoma. It's one of the larger towns they've stayed in this year, with a population of 23,000. It actually feels suburban.

"So you're fine with it," Myka says in slight disbelief.

Steve shrugs. "I don't care who you do as long as I never have to get in a car with her again."

Pete takes a sip of his coffee. He hasn't said anything. Myka raises her eyebrows at him and he raises his eyebrows back, but he remains silent.

Steve reaches across the table and shoves at her arm. "So is it serious?"

Myka shakes her head. "It's not anything. I told Claudia last night. It's just sex."

"I hope that's not on my account," he says. "You guys really hit it off last year. She's reckless, sure, and you know, you'd never want to let her drive, but you could use some of that in your life."

"It's not just that she's reckless," Myka explains. "It's like she has some sort of death wish and she doesn't care who else she kills on her way out. She put your life on the line, after I trusted her enough to put you in a car with her. That's not something I can just get over."

Steve nods. "Okay, I get it." He checks his watch. She swears the two of them must be the only people left who still wear them, but it makes her feel better to have one on, especially during a chase. "It's almost ten. We should get going if we want to make it to Lindsborg by three."

"Yeah, let's go," Myka agrees, picking up her coffee and looping her arm through the strap of her backpack as Claudia slides out of the booth.

"Pete," she calls as they're leaving the building. He stops halfway through the door and turns toward her. "Hang back a second?"

"Sure," he says. He glances out the window where Claudia and Steve are halfway to the car and still haven't realized they aren't behind them, and lets the door swing closed. "What's up?"

"You're quiet," she says. "Thoughts?"

Pete sighs. "I don't know what you want me to say." He shakes his head and glances over his shoulder at Claudia and Steve. They're standing at the back of the truck now, watching. "I know you know you don't need my permission to see someone."

"Are you upset about it?" she asks. She knows she sounds like a child who's done something they knew they weren't supposed it. In some ways, she feels like that too. But Pete is her best friend, and if this is going cause a problem between them, she wants to know about it now. She won't lose him.

Pete is silent for a moment. He leans against the door frame and thinks.

"I'm not mad at you for seeing her," he finally answers. "I know it's not… it's not always easy for you out here. I know you feel alone. But…" he scratches the back of his neck. "I just don't want to see you hurt."

"I know you don't," she says.

"I don't think it's a good idea," he continues. "What you said… something's not right with her. You know how you are. You feel responsible for everything that happens around you. I don't want you to get dragged into whatever she's got going on."

"I know." Myka squeezes his arm. "I'll be careful."

He smiles at her almost sadly and nods. "You always are. I'm just not sure it's going to be enough this time." He glances down at his wrist even though he doesn't wear a watch and says, "Steve's right. We need to move. Don't want to miss another storm."

"Hey!" she protests as she pushes the door open, glad to have something comfortable to talk about. "That was your call last Thursday, not mine. I wanted to go to Dearing. We would have caught the tornado in Dearing."

* * *

By the time the Rosalia storm hits, Myka has been meeting Helena for almost a month. They've spent fifteen nights together, and Myka hasn't gotten any closer to ending it or to admitting to herself that she doesn't want to.

Claudia has suggested picking up other women the way she used to before she met Helena that first time.

"It was always easy for you to find someone before," she'd said. "You just need to get your mind off her."

Myka had sighed and said she'd think about it, and she'd even downloaded Tinder to appease her, but she'd never really thought about it. She'd deleted the app again the next morning. Looking at the little white icon had made her chest hurt.

"It looks like most of the roads here are dirt," Claudia says from the back seat as they head east of Rosalia, Kansas towards the spot where their supercell is starting to rotate. "We'll have to get in front of it before it crosses US-54."

"That gives us one opportunity," Myka adds. "We're not taking any chances on dirt roads. Pavement or gravel only. If it's a bust, at least we'll get some great footage."

"That's right," Pete replies. "Keep a roof over our heads for another week. Not that I wouldn't sleep in a car with the three of you, but we should try to avoid that if we can."

"Okay, look, look!" Myka points out the passenger side window, towards the mesocyclone. "It's coming down in that field back there. I think we need to be farther east."

The funnel cloud stretching toward the ground is rain-wrapped, only a shadow against the haze of precipitation, but Myka can tell that it's big. Six years ago, she would have called it a monster, but she uses that word more selectively now. It's got to be a mile across but she can tell from her window that it's moving predictably, southwest to northeast. It's not the kind of storm that would kill an experienced team of chasers.

Pete speeds up and heads east along the highway until Myka reaches for his arm.

"Okay, let's deploy here."

She's out of the car before Pete has slowed to a complete stop along the side of the road, pulling on the work gloves she stowed in the glove compartment at the beginning of the season. She and Steve lower the back hatch and pull Elphaba towards them.

By the time the front part of the base is over the edge of the bed, Pete and Claudia are beside them. They heave the machine into the grass beside the road, just at the edge of the field. Pete helps her hammer the stakes into the ground, and Steve and Claudia climb back in the truck. The storm is closing in, wiping the tall grass around their calves and blowing Myka's hair into her face.

"That's good! Let's go!" Pete calls to her over the dull roar of the oncoming storm. Hail has started to fall around them. It's its small, but it's a sign that they should move out of the way.

_"Baseball sized hail! Jesus Christ! Is it supposed to get this big?"_

They sprint back to the truck and Myka climbs into the passenger seat and slams the door behind her. Pete starts the car and speeds off so quickly that the force knocks Myka back against the seat.

"Jesus," Claudia groans.

"Sorry," Pete answers. "Just didn't want another close call."

Myka watches the storm cross the highway behind them. "Look at that," she murmurs as it takes a fence out of the ground and wraps it around itself in a way that reminds her of how staffs of music fly through the air in old cartoons.

Claudia turns to look out the back window as well. "Did it deploy?"

"Can't tell," Myka answers.

Pete pulls off the highway onto Township Road 36, just northwest of Reece. It's a gravel road, and the storm is north of them by now anyway. Myka would prefer to stick to pavement all the time, but in the rural plains, that's not usually possible.

He drives up a hill past a clump of trees and pulls off the road. Claudia helps Steve unload his tripod, which is stuck on something under Pete's seat, and they set it up in the grass behind the truck.

"Great vantage point," Steve mutters as he mounts the camera.

"You can see for miles out here," Claudia agrees, as if that isn't the case everywhere they go.

Pete reaches into the compartment in the driver's door and produces two cans of Coke.

"To a successful chase," he says.

Myka chuckles. "Shut up. If that thing turns on us in two minutes, it's your fault for jinxing it."

They crack open their Cokes just as Steve looks back at them.

"Hey, are you guys seeing this?"

"What?" Myka asks, moving closer to the camera.

"Look at this." Steve moves aside and points west, toward Township Road 34. When Myka squints, she can see the shadow of a vehicle—a Sedan, she thinks—emerges from the wall of precipitation wrapping the funnel. "Who is that guy?"

As 34 curves toward them and the car approaches, Myka squints to try to make it out. It's dark but not black and Myka can tell by the shape that it's at least fifteen years old. She can't make out the brand, but there's a sinking feeling in her chest.

She hasn't seen Helena in three days. She went down to a storm in Texas while they were in Calumet near Oklahoma City. Myka doesn't even know if she's here.

It feels like she's watching it happen in slow motion. The wind peels the car off the road, passenger side wheels first, and then driver's side. The car shoots towards the funnel cloud and then flies off into a field to the north. She can see it hit the ground and roll several times.

"They're dead," Claudia murmurs faintly. "We just watched someone die."

"What were they thinking?" Pete asks. "All they had to do was stop. They drove right into it."

"They probably didn't see it," Myka answers faintly. "They were core-punching. They probably drove out of heavy rain and right into the tornado without even knowing it was there. That's why we don't do it."

Steve turns his camera off. "Let's go."

They drive up 36, Claudia and Steve with the tripod still laying across their laps, until it intersects with 34. Claudia's trying to get Leena on her cell phone, despite the fact that none of them have service.

They can see the overturned car in the field out of Pete's window as they approach. The entire roof of the dark red Nissan is dented in.

Pete pulls off the road and Myka is out of the truck before anyone else has even taken off their seatbelts. She runs to the car and drops to her knees beside the broken driver's side window.

Helena is hanging upside down in her seat. Her arms are bent and the backs of her hands are resting on the ceiling. There's blood on her face, but when Myka reaches towards her, she looks in her direction.

"Oh," she says. "I must say, I'm happy to see you, but I expect this will make things a tad awkward later."

"Are they alive?" Claudia calls as she runs up behind Myka and drops down beside her. "Oh," she says. "Look who it is."

"Alive," she answers. "Conscious. Talking."

"That's got to be a miracle," Steve says, his voice growing louder as he approaches. "We saw them roll, what, three times?"

"At least," Claudia replies. "After being thrown."

Helena grimaces and nods at her. "I'm quite aware. Claudia, long time no see. I won't stop you from gloating, but do you think you might at least help me out of here first?"

Helena turns out to be hurt worse than she let on. Myka probably should have expected that, given that she watched the whole thing happen. She's not a doctor, but she understands enough to know that when you can see the bone, the leg is broken, and there's a jagged cut on the side of her neck turning the shoulder of her powder blue shirt brown.

"I'll go with her to the hospital," she tells the rest of her team. Claudia raises her eyebrows at her, but none of them look particularly surprised.

Myka glances at Helena, sitting in the grass propped against one of the back wheels of their truck. She looks ashen and nauseous and she's clutching her right side.

"I just don't think anyone should be alone when they're hurt," she explains, but the way they're looking at her doesn't change.

* * *

They take Helena to the hospital in El Dorado. Myka's not family, so she sits in the waiting room while Helena's being x-rayed.

"We're staying at the Holiday Inn Express off the Turnpike," Pete tells her over the phone while she's buying a vending machine coffee and a Snickers. "Call me when she's done. I'll come get you."

"It's late," Myka says, glancing down at her watch. It's almost eight, and Helena probably won't be done for another few hours. She doesn't want to leave without at least saying goodbye.

"It's not that far," Pete answers. "Two miles down the road. It'll take me five minutes. We might be out late anyway. Claud found a bar with a karaoke night, so we're headed over there."

"Wow," Myka says flatly. "Such a shame I missed that."

Pete chuckles. "I know. We're going to get 'Redneck Woman' out of you someday."

"Over my dead body," she answers. "I should let you go. Tell Steve to sing some NSYNC for me."

"I think he's already got the song picked out." She can hear the smile in his voice, but then he pauses, and when he speaks again, his tone is serious. "Listen, Mykes. If you need to talk, call me, okay? You're my best friend. Missing Claudia butcher some eighties power ballad is no sweat if you need me."

Myka bites her lip. There had been a time in high school when she thought she might have feelings for Pete, and this is why. How earnest he is. How much he cares about her. If she was going to manufacture romantic feelings for a guy, she's glad it was him.

"I know," she answers softly. "But I think I'm just going to try to take a nap."

She sets her untouched coffee on a side table next to a three-year-old copy of _Better Homes & Gardens_ and leans her head back against the wall, but she doesn't sleep. Helena's car being picked up and tossed is playing behind her eyelids over and over again, but she can feel the car being lifted off the road like she's a passenger. She can feel the dizzying spinning inside the tornado. She can feel the visceral fear of thinking she's about to die from deep within her chest and the overwhelming emptiness of realizing that someone is gone. She feels nauseous.

"Ms. Bering?"

She jerks upright when someone with a high, molasses-sweet voice calls her name.

"You can go back now."

She stands up and runs her hand over her hair. She feels shaky. Her head hurts.

The hospital is tiny. The door to Helena's room is almost visible from the waiting room. She's leaning back against a stack of pillows when Myka walks in. She's got a large band-aid on the side of her neck, and her right leg is immobilized. There's a cup of ice on the table in front of her.

"You didn't have to stay," she says without looking up.

"Yes, I did." Myka sits down in the chair beside the bed. "How are you?"

"Two broken ribs, a concussion, and my leg needs surgery," she grumbles with a wince. "I've certainly been better."

"You could have died," Myka points out.

Helena sighs and drops her head back against the pillows. "Yes, I know. I'm lucky to be alive. I shouldn't complain. I—"

"That's not what I'm saying," she says. "You could have died. Do you even care?"

Helena rolls her head to the side to look at her. "Of course I care."

"Well, you could have fooled me," Myka says. "Core-punching with a tornado that size? What were you thinking? You're not some amateur. I know you know better."

"I was thinking that there are things more important than my life," she answers. "I was thinking that if I got my data and someone else—someone like you—was able to find it and use it, then my being dead wouldn't be the worst thing in the world."

"So what?" Myka asks. "You're just going to keep doing this? Driving into storms none of us have any business being that close to when you know how dangerous it is? Totaling a car every season? Completely abandoning your sense of self-preservation?"

"Myka," she says sternly. Her eyes bore into her like she's looking straight through her. "I would gladly give my life for all of the people who are going to die, to lose their children to tornados between this year and next."

"Then I can't be here," Myka says. "I can't watch you kill yourself. I've lost—I've already…" She trails off and looks up towards the ceiling. She can feel tears pricking at the corners of her eyes, and she blinks rapidly to stop them from falling.

"You lost someone," Helena murmurs. "A teammate?"

Myka bites her lip and nods.

"In El Reno?" Helena asks. Myka can feel her fingers drift over the back of her hand where it rests on the bed.

Myka nods again. "We got stuck in it. We were… we were picked up and tossed, and the three of us in the car, we were fine—well not—we walked away. But Sam was sucked out the window. He was sitting there next to me one second and the next he was just… he was gone."

She can still hear him screaming beside her over the deafening winds. She can still remember the second his voice abruptly stopped.

"Myka…" Helena says.

"I was navigating," she says. She wipes her eyes and shakes her head. "So if you think you're going to be some sort of martyr, I can't stop you, but I won't stick around while you do it. I can't have another friend's death on my hands. I don't think I'd survive that."

She squeezes Helena's hand. "Do you have a way home?"

Helena smiles sadly at her. "I'll get there."

And she turns and leaves, and she doesn't look back.


	3. Sunlight

Myka goes back to the news station with Steve, just like last year. She never expects to see Helena again, just like last year. She gets beers with Pete on Friday nights and texts Claudia and Leena sporadically to ask how Elphaba's doing. They've made some updates that Leena seems excited about and Claudia hasn't mentioned, so Myka guesses that whatever features they added do not have unanimous support.

Pete starts seeing a woman in January. She's a veterinarian named Kelly, and Myka has never seen Pete so serious about anyone.

"Of course, I'm still chasing with you this year," he assures her when she brings it up. "We've talked about it. She knows it's a done deal. She says to be careful."

Actually, Myka really likes her, which is more than she can say for Pete's previous girlfriends, all of which have been short-lived. It's just that Pete has someone else to spend Friday nights with now. They switch their standing plans to Thursday, and it should be fine.

It should be fine, but she still spends a lot more time alone these days. When she's by herself on her couch, she can still feel the phantom of Sam's arm around her shoulders, the anxiety and confusion and anger that always came with it. The guilt over his death and the guilt that came with realizing after he died that she would never have loved him the way he loved her.

When she's alone, there's no one to stop her from staring at her phone with her thumb hovering over Helena's number.

She really should delete it.

* * *

The next season gets off to a quick start. Myka meets Pete and Kelly for breakfast as the sun is first starting to peek over the horizon. Pete kisses Kelly goodbye, and then Myka gets in Pete's truck and Kelly drives Myka's car back to her apartment. Steve meets them at the warehouse, where Leena and Claudia are making some last minute adjustments to Elphaba. Claudia doesn't look like she's slept all night, but she helps them load Elphaba in to the bed of the truck and hugs Leena for longer than Myka expects her to before she climbs into the back seat.

"Okay, there's a string of supercells over northern Kansas," Myka says as they're buckling their seatbelts. "I'm focusing on one near Dresden. We can make it by three if we don't stop."

"Fine with me," Claudia mumbles, already half asleep with her head against the window.

They arrive in Dresden around 3:30. There's a little gas station just off 383 called Ed's Tire and Oil, and the parking lot is packed with chasers.

"I'll go grab us some sandwiches," Pete says, already halfway out of the car. In the seat behind Myka, Claudia is sitting up and rubbing her eyes.

"Are we here?"

"Congratulations, Sleeping Beauty. You were out for seven hours," Steve says, nudging her in the side.

"Fuck off," she groans as she swats at him halfheartedly. "You would be too if you'd just pulled two all-nighters in a row."

Myka notices some vaguely familiar faces ambling around the parking lot, but Zach and Jim aren't here. There's a promising pocket of storms around Oklahoma City. Most of the people who started yesterday or from farther south are probably down. Myka had been kicking herself at the NWS center this morning for not bumping their departure up a day so they could make it.

They sit on the back of the truck and eat their sandwiches. Claudia walks around the side of the building to make what's supposed to be a quick call to Leena, but it lasts half an hour and makes Steve raise his eyebrows at her when she comes back. They head up 383 to get into position at 4:30.

They pull off on a dirt road just west of Jennings, just north of a large wall cloud hanging over an empty field.. The sky is a dark, angry teal.

"Perfect," Myka says as the car slows to a stop. "Once it's on the ground, we'll go east to deploy and then we can get out of the way and let Steve do his thing."

"There it goes," Claudia points out her window. "Looks like it's going to be a big one."

A thin, ropelike funnel is stretching from the low-hanging wall cloud toward the ground about four hundred years from where the car is parked.

"And we have touchdown." Claudia claps her hands together. "God, look at that rotation."

"East," Myka tells Pete without turning away from the window. The funnel is already gaining size, starting to look more like a cone than a rope. "A little faster." She looks back down at her laptop. "I think just past 2300th should be good."

"Just tell me when," Pete answers.

"Whoa!" Claudia exclaims.

"What?" Steve asks. Myka can hear him shuffle in the back seat to look out Claudia's window.

"It's a second vortex," she answers.

"Holy shit." The Velcro on his bag makes a ripping sound as he rushes to get his camera out.

"Hey!" Pete protests as he knees the back of his seat. "I'm driving here."

"Myka, you've got to see this," Claudia says.

When she looks back out the window, the funnel is much closer than it was before. The edge of the wall cloud is nearly over them. The wind roars in her ears. The satellite tornado is spinning wildly around its parent. She remembers watching Helena speed into that storm in Rosalia last summer, the way she could hear her heart beat in her ears. The drop in her stomach, as if she knew even before she really knew. She remembers being picked up by a vortex none of them could see, back wheels first and then the front. She hears the echoes of screams that abruptly stop. She can feel the sting of glass across her cheek as the windows break.

"We have to get out of here," she gasps.

"What are you talking about?" Claudia asks at the same time as Pete says, "Mykes."

"We have to go," she repeats louder. "Take…" she can barely get her thoughts together enough to read the map on her screen. "Take this road coming up to the left."

"We have time to deploy," Claudia says. "It's still three hundred yards away. Everything's going according to plan."

"Go," she urges Pete, and he does without another word.

The road she they end up on is a dead end. Myka hadn't even noticed. If the storm had been closer, they could be dead right now. She can feel the truck being picked up. She can hear them screaming.

Claudia and Steve are silent as they climb out of the truck to set up Steve's camera. After a moment, Pete gets out too. She can hear them talking behind the truck, but she can't hear what they're saying. She drops her head in to her hands and tries to breathe, tries not to cry. Her heart is beating so fast that she could have sprinted all the way here.

A moment later, the driver's door opens again. She can hear the seat squeak as someone sits down, and then it slams closed.

"So," Pete says. "What happened?"

She sighs. "I didn't look at the map carefully enough," she answers. "I didn't see that the road was ending."

"I'm not talking about the road," Pete says. "What happened to you back there? One minute everything's fine and the next you're telling me to bail?"

"We were too close," she replies.

"Not any closer than usual," Pete says gently. "You know we have to cut it close when we deploy or we risk it changing directions before it even gets to Elphaba."

"I know, I know," she mutters.

"So what's up?"

She sighs again. "When we were in…" she nods toward him, "El Reno, a satellite vortex was what picked us up. We didn't know it was there until it was right on top of us."

"Are you…" he hesitates. "Was it a flashback?"

She shakes her head. "I knew where I was," she answers. "It was more like a… it was more like a forceful memory."

"How long's this been going on?" Pete asks.

"Since it happened," Myka admits without looking at him. "It's been worse the past year or two."

"Since Helena almost drove Steve into that twister?" Pete asks.

She nods. "Maybe. Listen, I know you don't like her—"

"This isn't about her," Pete says. "I want you to be happy. Have you given anymore thought to what I said? About seeing someone?"

She shakes her head. "You know I can probably count on one hand the number of female chasers I've met?"

"Mykes—"

"If I see someone about it, that means it messed me up." She pauses. A tear rolls down her cheek. Her throat hurts from trying to suppress the sob fighting its way out of her chest. "And maybe that means I shouldn't have been out there in the first place."

"Myka, no," Pete says sternly. "You belong out here. We all know that. But there's no… there's no shame in needing a little help recovering from something that traumatic. Hell, if that had happened to me, I'd probably be sitting at home watching all this on the Weather Channel."

"No, you wouldn't," she answers. "You did two tours."

She feels him rest his hand on her shoulder. "This team would be nothing without you. We all know that, but… we need you to keep yourself together before you try to keep us together, you know?"

She nods. She's trying to keep her face in her hands so Pete can't tell that she's crying, but he reaches across the console, opens the glove compartment, and takes out a packet of tissues.

"Here," he says as she takes them from him. "Take a minute, and when you're ready, we'll talk about what we're going to do about in-storm navigation for the rest of the season."

* * *

They strike out for almost two full weeks after that. On the twelfth day, they're in a McDonald's parking lot in Fairbury, Nebraska eating dollar menu burgers and chicken nuggets. They've been eating a steady diet of McDonald's and Burger King for the past five days because no touchdowns means that Steve hasn't been able to sell any footage, and they need to save money for gas and motels.

"Junction City's less than two hours away," Myka is saying. She's sitting in the bed of the truck, one leg swinging off the end, holding a cheeseburger in one hand and the data from the NWS office in Hastings in the other. The map is spread out in front of her. "It looks like there's something going on down there. Ponca City looks more promising, but that's twice as far. It would be close."

"That's more than a half a tank of gas," Pete adds.

Claudia nods. "Hard to justify going all the way down there if we might miss it." She takes a bite of a chicken nugget. "Especially with our little green problem."

The "little green problem" is the twenty dollar bill in Myka's wallet. It's all they have left of the payout Steve got for the footage he took in Dresden their first day out. He'd have gotten more for it if they'd been closer. No one has brought it up, but that doesn't stop Myka from blaming herself.

"Junction City it is," she agrees. She takes a bite of her cheeseburger as another car parks in the spot behind her. She hears the engine cut off. "We've got a little time then, if anyone has some pocket change for an apple pie."

Claudia chuckles and shakes her head, but Pete says, "I think there's some coins in the CD tray," and climbs out of the bed of the truck over the side.

Myka is folding up the map and watching Claudia nibble on her last chicken nugget when he returns.

"What did you find?" Claudia asks.

"Ninety-nine cents." He dumps a pile of nickels and dimes into her outstretched hands. "Knock yourself out."

Claudia does an excited hop-skip and shoves the coins into the pocket of her cargo shorts. Pete turns to Myka as she sprints toward the little brick building.

"You should take a look at the car behind us," he says, his voice low.

Myka furrows her brow at him. She hops off the back hatch and walks around the side of the truck to put the map back into the compartment in the passenger-side door.

The car parked beside them is a dark blue Honda Accord that looks at least fifteen years old. There's a middle-aged man sitting in the driver's seat studying a map. Myka is about to turn back to Pete to ask him what the deal is when she hears the door of the McDonald's open and close. She looks up, expecting to see Claudia with her apple pie.

Instead, Helena is standing there staring at her as the door swings shut.

"Helena," she breathes.

Helena nods at her, pulls her face into a tight smile. She stands there for what feels like at least a minute, and then she glances down at the bag in her hand and over at the car to Myka's right.

"Well, I'd best be off—"

"Wait," Myka says. She takes a deep breath. This is probably a bad idea. They had a clean break. There's no use complicating it almost a year later. "Do you have a second?"

Helena hesitates and then nods at her. She follows her around to the other side of the building where a sidewalk runs along the side of the drive thru lane.

When they've reached the edge of the sidewalk just in front of the second window, Myka stops and whirls around to look at her.

"You were just going to pretend I wasn't there?"

"I didn't think you'd want to see me." Helena shrugs. She has a small scar on the side of her neck, but that is the only indicator Myka can see of last year's accident. "You made that rather clear last year."

Myka forces herself to take another breath and exhale slowly before answering. "Fair enough. I didn't think you'd be out here this season."

"Why?" she asks.

"To be honest?" Myka pauses. "With all the medical bills, I didn't think you could afford to replace another car."

Helena laughs, and it sounds just like she remembers it. "Right you are. That's Nate's car."

"Nate?" Myka raises her eyebrows.

"Nate." Helena gestures towards the car. "We work together. He's agreed to come out with me this year."

"Are you…" Myka trails off and looks away.

"I'm not sure how that's any of your business any longer," Helena says. "But no, we're not. He's still quite broken up over the recent death of his wife, and even if he was available…" she shakes her head, "Not my type. No, I brought him here to be my driver because I needed someone with their priorities in order to prevent me from—"

"From driving directly into another tornado?" Myka supplies.

"From taking unnecessary risks," Helena answers. "One could say that the six-month recovery period from a broken tibia came as a sort of wakeup call. Or you walking out on me in the hospital came as a sort of wakeup call. I'm still not entirely clear about which it actually was."

"Oh." Myka nods. She reaches out and squeezes Helena's arm. "That's great, Helena. I'm glad to hear that you've realized your life has value."

She furrows her brow, and god, Myka wishes she didn't still find it so adorable. "I feel as though I owe you an explanation."

"You don't have to—"

"No, I do," Helena says. "We've known each other long enough and after all I've put you through… it's time for someone to know." She points towards the door. "Would you like to sit down?"

Myka sighs. "We have to get going."

"Come in," Helena pushes. "I won't be long."

Myka hesitates, and then she nods. They go into the restaurant and sit across from each other at a table behind the trashcans. Someone has painted two initials with a heart around them in purple nail polish on the corner of the table closest to the wall. Helena takes a sip of her drink and then sets down in front of her.

"I had a daughter."

"Oh." Myka raises her eyebrows in surprise.

"I was young and foolish and I thought I was in love, and I'm sure you're familiar with the state of abortion laws in Kansas and Missouri, especially when one is a minor, so I ended up with my Christina. I graduated from high school with a one-year-old child in my arms. University was quite out of the question. And now… well, now I can't imagine ever leaving the place where she lived. Going back to London or Paris or Berlin and pretending none of it ever happened? That holds no appeal for me whatsoever. So I stayed, alone and quite filled with regret."

"But you're a meteorologist," Myka says. "You have a degree."

"That I got after…" she trails off, looks out the window for a moment, and takes a deep breath. "That I got after she died." She looks back at Myka. "The outbreak in May, 2003, when it hit Kansas City. She was eight."

"Your daughter died in a tornado," Myka says. She leans back in her chair and turns the revelation over in her mind for a moment. "I'm so sorry."

Helena shakes her head. "Nothing you could have done. I, on the other hand, left her with my sister for no reason other than that I was twenty-five years old and wanted a night to myself."

Myka reaches over to rest a hand on her arm before thinking better of it and balling it into a fist instead. "You have to know that wasn't your fault."

Helena doesn't answer her. "I threw myself into meteorology," she says. "I thought if I could only find a way to increase warning times, I could prevent what happened to Christina from happening to other children. And, I suppose, as a way to atone. I truly believe my life to be less significant than the children my research could save but… I've come to see the value in being alive to actually do something with my data."

She sighs and pauses, like she might be giving Myka a chance to speak, but she says nothing—she's not sure what to say—so Helena continues.

"I don't expect much in the way of additional chances when I've already squandered two, but I wanted you to know that. I did love the time we spent together. I miss your company."

"Yeah." Myka nods. "Yeah, I do too."

Helena looks at her watch. She's the only person Myka knows other than herself and Steve who still wears one, but Helena has always seemed a little timeless somehow.

"Well, I don't want to keep you. I imagine you're headed down to Junction City."

"Yeah," Myka answers as she stands up. "You're going there too?"

Helena nods. "Perhaps we'll see each other out and about."

She stands beside the table toying with the straw in her cup like she isn't sure whether to expect anything but she's hoping for it. Myka pulls her into a hug.

"Thank you for telling me," she whispers. "I'll see you soon."

* * *

Myka and Claudia switch seats in a Shell parking lot once they reach Junction City. Claudia has been doing most of the navigating during chases this season. It makes Myka feel useless, but she won't risk directing Pete down another dead end with a tornado on their tail.

God, she hates it.

They head south on US-77 and pull off on State Lake Drive across from a decrepit looking fishing pond. A dark blue wall cloud is already hanging over a field northwest of them rotating ominously.

"Look at the left edge on that thing," Myka murmurs. She turns to Pete and Claudia. "This is going to be our day."

"Does it look big?" Pete asks.

"Mmm." Myka shakes her head. "I don't think we're looking at anything too violent, but I think we've got a tornado-producer."

"There is goes! There it goes!" Steve says. He grabs his camera and climbs out of the car as a section of the cloud peels off and folds down towards the wheat field.

"It's on the ground," she says as she watches it move right along the horizon collecting the wisps of cloud hanging around it. "Looks like a stovepipe."

"Okay, let's get ahead of it." She leans out her window and yells, "Get in the car!"

Steve runs toward the car and jumps into the back seat without ever lowering his camera. He slams the door shut and hangs out the window.

Myka leans forward and looks at the map on the computer over Claudia's shoulder. "Keep going east," she says. "The road's going to turn north up here. That should put us in the right spot."

There's not a building in sight as they drive down State Lake Road and round the bend. Myka likes chasing when the only things around them are wheat and corn. Watching a tornado pull apart a neighborhood is odd. It never hits her until after the chase is over, but she lays in bed that night stewing in guilt over the fact that she loves her work.

"Myka, north or east on Otter Creek?" Claudia asks.

Myka leans across the seat to look out Steve's window, and then twists around to look out the back, looking for the great brown stovepipe.

"East. It's about to cross the road behind us."

The patter of rain begins against the roof of the car, and Pete flips on the windshield wipers.

"Look at that," Claudia says as they come up on Hartel Road.

As they pass, Myka sees a ribbon of headlights stalled in the road.

"Chasers?" Steve calls without looking. He's still hanging out the window, camera aimed behind them.

"Looks like it," Myka answers. "They're going to have to move. They're too far north. Right in its path."

"Hey, the road's ending up here," Pete says. "Right or left?"

"Right," Myka and Claudia answer at the same time.

"It's heading almost due west," Myka says. "Just go south until we're in front of it and we'll drop Elphaba."

They turn onto Skiddy, and Claudia says, "Left up here. I don't think we're far enough in front of it yet. You agree, Myka?"

"Yep," she answers.

"Left on Hoff, and then we'll have to catch it on Clarks Creek," Claudia says. "That's going to be last road that goes south. If we miss that turn, we lose it."

"Got it," Pete says.

They finally come to a stop on Clarks Creek Road with only a few minutes to spare, but Myka takes a second to squint at the tornado when she gets out of the car.

"Looks like it's over Hartel right now," she says.

"Hope everyone got out of there," Pete says. He claps his hands together. "Okay, guys. Let's go."

They unload Elphaba and set her in the grass beside the road. The wind is blowing in Myka's face, howling around her. The tornado isn't very big, but it is close.

"Hail!" Steve calls to her left as something his the road with a thud.

She can hear the sound of a window breaking. A scream that increases in volume, like it's coming towards her.

"Hey, I have to get back in the car!" she calls to Pete over the wind. "Can you guys handle this?"

"Yeah, we got it!" he calls back. "Do your thing,"

She passes her hammer off to Claudia and climbs back into the backseat of the truck. Three of the doors are open, so she can still hear the wind howling, but she can't feel it anymore.

She jumps when something hard hits the roof of the car.

"Golf ball-sized hail!" she hears Steve call. The car shakes as Pete and Claudia dive into the front seat from either side. A moment later, Steve is in the seat next to her, sheltering his camera with his body. His shirt is soaked.

"Is it hammered in?" Myka asks.

"It's all good," Pete answers.

"Keep heading south," Claudia tells him as he starts the truck back up. "Just enough to get out of the way, and then Steve can set up."

"I'll keep him close," Pete says. He leans toward the back seat. "That okay, Mykes?"

She nods weakly. "Yeah. Yeah, it's fine."

Pete pulls over just short of A Avenue when the tornado is almost on top of where their deployment position. Steve pulls his tripod out of the car, and Claudia gets out to help him.

"You coming?" Pete asks as he opens his door.

"No." She presses her head into her hands. "I need to stay here for a minute."

"Everything okay?" he asks. She can hear the concern in his voice.

"I'll be fine," she answers. "Just… make sure you close your door behind you."

He's silent for a moment, and then she hears the seat squeak and the door slam shut a moment later.

She can't catch her breath. She climbs over the console and takes one of the bottles of water rolling around on the floor of the truck and drinks the entire thing. She opens the glove compartment. The Nutrigrain bars she left last season are still here. She takes one out and tries to open it, but her hands are still shaking to hard. She tosses it against the windshield, takes a deep breath, and climbs out of the truck.

She hates feeling so weak.

Her team is standing about ten feet behind the truck. The rain has lightened. Steve is still filming the tornado, which is comfortably northeast of them now and is starting to rope out.

"You good?" Pete asks, glancing at her over his shoulder as she approaches them.

"Yeah," she answers as he wraps his arm around her shoulders.

"Good," he says. "Check it out." He points at the dissipating storm. "This is my favorite part."

"Why?" Myka asks. "It's almost gone."

"Just look at it," Pete says. "Something so destructive, and it's over. Just like that, everything's fine. Soon the sun will even come out. Sure some fields are messed up. Sure it's going to take some work. But even when there's total devastation, the sun comes back out. Things always look better when the sun's out."

* * *

They drive back towards Junction City along A Avenue. Claudia is the first to see it.

"Holy shit!" she exclaims. "Turn here!"

They turn onto Skiddy Road, and then Myka sees it too, out Steve's window. The field is full of dented up cars laying on their sides and roofs. Myka only sees one that's right-side-up, and it has a driver's side door that's so crumpled that she doubts it's drivable.

"They must have been stuck there," she murmurs.

"Probably stuck behind a bunch of hobbyists," Claudia groans. "Do you think they're okay?"

"Don't know," Pete answers. He pulls into the grass along the side of the road. "Grab the first aid kit," he tells Claudia. "Under the seat."

People are milling around the field dazed. Myka recognizes some of them, but many she doesn't. Claudia was probably right, local thrill-seekers who didn't know when to get out and blocked everyone else's escape route.

Pete jogs from group to group, Claudia trailing after him, asking if everyone is okay, but Myka feels just as dazed as they look.

She sees Zach and Jim framed by the undercarriage of Jim's Chevy Cobalt, and she wanders over to them.

"You guys okay?" she asks. Her voice sounds soft and raspy.

They look over at her in surprise.

"Myka," Zach says. "I didn't know you were here. Did you get caught in it too?"

"No," she answers. "We were over on Clarks Creek. We just… we were just headed back to town when we saw…" she gestures around them, "everything."

Jim furrows his brow at her. "You okay?"

She nods. "Everyone keeps asking me that."

He sighs and looks around. "Awfully familiar, isn't it? It touched down headed northwest, and by the time we realized it had leveled off…" he glances around the field. "We didn't all have time to get out. Plus, some asshole was parked in the road up there." He nods south. "Good thing it was a little one this time. We only rolled twice."

"Still," Zach glances over the side of the car. "Car's finished."

"I've got to go check on someone else," Mykes hears herself say. "I'm glad you're both okay."

Twenty yards north of Zach and Jim's car, Helena is helping Nate climb out the passenger-side window of his Honda.

"Guess you're destined to total a car every year, huh?" she says as she comes up behind her.

Helena guides Nate as he stands up, and then she looks at Myka, her hands still on his arms. "Through no recklessness of my own this time, I assure you."

"I know," Myka answers. "No core-punching or crazy races against mother nature today." She glances back towards Zach and Jim, and then over at Pete, who is helping someone bandage a wound on their shoulder. "You were right with everyone else."

"Our downfall, it seems," she agrees. "I suppose it pay sometimes to throw caution to the wind such that no one else wants near you."

"Your arm is bleeding." Myka points to a dark crimson stain across the bicep of Helena's shirt.

"Yes, it appears I'll have to go back to the emergency room," she sighs. "I'd hoped I'd seen the last of that place. The last time I was there, the experience was somewhat less than ideal."

"And you don't have any serious injuries this time," Myka says. "So they'll probably make you wait even longer."

"Myka." Helena crosses her arms and leans away as if she's studying her. "Would you be a dear and break my leg again?"

And Myka's laughing, just like that.

"Truth be told," Helena continues, "it wasn't the wait that made me so miserable last time."

"You had a broken leg," Myka replies. "You were in a lot of pain."

"You left me," Helena says.

"We've talked about why I ha—"

Helena holds up a hand to stop her. "I haven't said I didn't deserve it," she says. "But it was…" She pauses. "When I said I didn't know what it was that woke me up…" She sighs. "I lied."

Myka is silent.

"I mean, there may have been some… there may have been some therapy involved as well, but even doing that… I set foot in the office of a psychologist for the first time last August." She sighs. "Sometimes it takes…" She looks away, off to something on Myka's right. "It takes someone important to you walking out of your life to show you how far you've gone."

Myka hesitates. "I thought about you too. I kept trying to delete your number, but I just never could."

"It seems we're destined to be a part of each other's lives then," Helena says. "For better or for worse."

The urge to smile is tugging at the corner of Myka's lips. "I mean, if some force of nature is pushing us together, who are we to defy it?"

"We'd be fools to stand in the way of this sort of natural phenomenon," Helena agrees.

And Myka kisses her there in the field, surrounded by upturned cars and assorted scraps of wood and metal and emotional displays of relief as chase teams reunite. The kiss doesn't last long because they're surrounded by injured, and it occurs to Myka that this might not be the appropriate place and time for this to be happening. She's been there, wandering around a different field surrounded by different cars with the same dizzy breathlessness and a different broken heart.

But no one is dead this time, and even though the sun isn't out now, it will be.


End file.
